"Gancheng Water Snake" is not only famous in Hainan Island, but also praised by mainlanders after tasting it. A few years ago, some foreign businessmen even planned to plant "water spinach with a sense of city" on a large scale in gancheng town, the eastern city, but the quality of the products planted through experiments was greatly reduced, so they had to give up. It seems that the phrase "scarcity is precious" is absolutely correct.
There is a unique water spinach in gancheng town, Dongfang City, which is famous for its few leaves and thick stems and delicious taste. Don't think that the stem of Ipomoea aquatica is as thick as a thumb and looks "old", but it tastes crisp and memorable, so it can't be called "dish".
People usually see more leaves in water spinach, but "water spinach in the city" is different. Its leaves are pitiful. Therefore, eating water spinach in the city is mainly to eat its stems.
The Thanksgiving River in Gancheng Town, which crosses the Thanksgiving Plain, is a paradise for the growth of "Gancheng Ipomoea aquatica". It is rooted in the soft and fertile sand along the river bank, and its stems and leaves float on the surface of the Thanksgiving River and grow freely. It has tenacious vitality, does not need fertilization, does not need pest control, people just need to wait for the harvest. Because Ipomoea aquatica has been sleeping on the water for a long time, its trunk has been dyed dark brown, probably because it looks "old".
[2] Gancheng sour melon
Ganzhen, an eastern city in the west of Hainan Province, was under the jurisdiction of Ganen County in ancient times and has always been a place rich in watermelon seeds.
Watermelon is the same shape and color as watermelon. Therefore, it is called "Zi", which is much smaller than watermelon, only the size of a fist. Thanksgiving County Records in the 11th year of Qing Emperor Kangxi recorded: "Watermelon seeds, also known as heart melons, have three colors: red, yellow and white, and the red one is especially good, which can quench thirst and have many kernels as big as a fist."
Watermelon seed is a tropical cash crop suitable for the growth of soil and climate conditions in hometown. It blooms and bears fruit in late spring and early summer every year, and begins to mature before the Dragon Boat Festival. The melons in the garden are scattered all over the floor. When harvesting melons, farmers pull ox carts or drive walkers to Gua Tian, and take watermelons home for villagers to share for free. When people eat melons, they take them out to eat the pulp, and then put them away. Dry the melon seeds and keep them for sale. Melon seeds are very valuable. It is the raw material for making a variety of food snacks, and it is also indispensable for the filling of Wuren Mid-Autumn Festival cake. Cut the peel into small pieces, sprinkle with salt and put it away. After about ten days, the skin is sour and sweet, and you can eat it. Or leave it for half a year, and the color of the melon skin becomes grayish yellow, which is delicious. There are many cooking methods for eating sour melon skin: stewed melon skin with fish, stewed melon skin with fat, stewed melon skin with beef brisket, fried melon skin with duck, fish head melon skin soup and so on. When cooking, add appropriate amount of sugar, pepper and other ingredients to taste, which is delicious and appetizing. Eating sour melon skin is cheap and has many benefits. It can not only relieve boredom, lose weight and lower blood pressure, but also quench thirst and produce fluid.
Fresh watermelon seeds not only have good nutritional value, but also have good medicinal value. Watermelon seeds contain protein, glucose, fructose, malic acid, amino acids, phosphoric acid, citric acid, carotene, vitamins B and C, etc. Chinese medicine believes that watermelon seeds are sweet and cold, non-toxic, nourishing the heart and benefiting qi, clearing away heat and relieving summer heat, inducing diuresis and sobering up, and have therapeutic effects on chronic nephritis, cystitis, short and red urine, constipation and heatstroke. Seed shell powder can treat hemoptysis and hematochezia caused by heat.
The common, authentic and simple way is to cook soup with sour melon seeds and fresh fish. The boiled soup has the unique sour taste of sour melon while maintaining the delicious taste of fish. Its soup is light and fragrant, sweet and beautiful, with a special slightly sour taste, which greatly satisfies your appetite. Even if you have no appetite, smelling the fragrance can ensure your appetite is wide open, and you can't bear to put down your chopsticks once you eat it.
There is also an authentic braise in soy sauce. You can simply braise the pickled melon skin with pork intestines or hemp fish, or you can cook it with pepper and sugar, so it becomes a sour, sweet and spicy delicacy, which will definitely make you say "delicious!"